Billy Tate is one of the unsung heroes of cross-border
and cross-community cooperation in Northern Ireland. This Ulster Unionist
Party member and former soldier in the Royal Artillery is the principal
of Belvoir Park Primary School, on the edge of an overwhelmingly Protestant
working class housing estate in south-east Belfast. After trying hard
- and failing - some years ago to attract a local Catholic school to
twin with his school, he went south and forged a partnership with Scoil
Mhuire National School in Howth, County Dublin, through the ICT-based
Dissolving Boundaries project.

But that was not enough for this extraordinarily outward looking school
principal. Belvoir Park has adopted an 'international policy', and has
moved since 2004 from being a 'single identity' school in an estate
once perceived as a 'no go' area for Catholics to one which boasts children
from Nigeria, Poland, Lithuania, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and South
America.

Meanwhile Billy Tate's outreach to the island of Ireland and its culture
has continued. First he introduced Irish traditional music and dancing
into the school. Then some of the children asked if they could try their
hand at Gaelic games. He turned for assistance to two visionary secondary
principals, P.J. O'Grady of St Patrick's College, Bearnageeha in Catholic
north Belfast and Andy McMorran of Ashfield Boys High School in Protestant
east Belfast, who had come together in a mould-breaking initiative to
play hurling and shinty together (see below). GAA coaches from Tyrone
and the Bredagh club in south Belfast coached the Belvoir Park children
in Gaelic football and hurling, and in their first hurling tournament
they won one game and drew two.

'We see sport as a bridge-builder', says Tate. 'There is something profound
about watching children in Rangers or Linfield shirts playing Gaelic
games, and it points to a new future in Northern Ireland for everyone.'
He is pretty sure this is the first time that Gaelic games have been
played in a controlled (i.e. largely Protestant) primary school anywhere
in Belfast, and probably in Northern Ireland. His hope is that it will
begin to make the GAA 'more accessible and welcoming to the Protestant
community' and that Catholic schools will start to embrace his beloved
rugby in the same spirit.

The GAA is already responding. Two years ago the first sporting contacts
had been initiated between Ashfield High and St Patrick's Bearnageeha.
Last year this led, under the guidance of the Ulster Council's community
development manager, Ryan Feeney, to five boys from each school, plus
five more from Corpus Christi College in Ballymurphy in Catholic west
Belfast and the Boys Model School on the Protestant Crumlin Road, forming
a squad which went to Inverness in Scotland to play in an under-16 shinty
tournament there (for those not in the know, shinty is a close Scottish
relation of hurling).

This month marked two more landmarks in this extraordinary experiment
in peace building through sport. On 3rd July a Scottish under-16 shinty
team played a return match against the new cross-community team, Belfast
C'chullains, in front of an invited audience (including senior officials
from the Ulster-Scots Agency and Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP and Sinn
Fein politicians) on the playing fields of Stormont. On the 18th the
team crossed the Atlantic to play challenge matches in New York and
Washington, before going to Philadelphia for the GAA's Intercontinental
Youth Games, which bring teams together from North America, Britain,
Europe and Ireland every year.

The Ulster Council has now started to formulate ambitious plans to have
a cross-community hurling team in every large town in Northern Ireland
and the three Southern border counties. Last autumn saw the then DUP
Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, Edwin Poots, visiting Newry
for a McKenna Cup football match between Down and Donegal, and one of
the North's most senior Orangemen in Croke Park for the all-Ireland
hurling final, both as guests of the GAA (I have been asked not to use
the second man's name, since he has been publicly vilified for his attendance
- a remnant of the bad old Northern Ireland!). One wonders how long
it will be before a courageous young man from the Shankill Road or the
Newtownards Road (for the four pioneering schools in this initiative
draw most of their pupils from Belfast's working class heartlands) joins
him on the pitch there. Not too long, I hope.

A school principal awarded the MBE in the
recent New Year's Honours List has dedicated the award to his former
principal, the late Donald Woodman of Portadown College. Billy Tate
(55), who was born and brought up in Portadown, received the award
for services to education in Northern Ireland.

He said Mr Woodman had been his inspiration and one of the people
who had most influenced his teaching career. 'He was unique. He
was an exceptional man and at a time when there was no leadership
training, a great principal. He loved his pupils and we loved him,"
said Mr Tate. The other person who influenced him was Jim Barriskill,
his principal at Thomas Street Primary School whom Mr Tate described
as 'an excellent role model within teaching".

Mr Tate, who is principal of Belvoir Park Primary School, began
his teaching career in 1977, and has been a principal for the past
20 years. During his career, he has also taught in Holywood High,
Armagh Secondary and Aughnacloy Primary. One of eight children of
the late Molly and Harold Tate, he was brought up in Burnbrae Avenue,
just off Thomas Street, and attended Thomas Street Primary School
and Portadown College.

He then went on to Stranmillis College of Education, Queen's University
Belfast and the University of Hull, where he obtained a Bachelor
of Education (BEd) degree, a Diploma in Educational Leadership and
a Master of Business Administration Educational Leadership International
(MBA).

In a recent contribution to the Portadown College Class of 1972
website, Mr Tate fondly recalls his day at the college. He notes
that while his parents' concerns centred on being able to afford
the school uniform, he was more worried about being a 'working-class
boy" preparing to go to a 'middle-class school".

However, his first day was full of warmth and excitement, 'feelings
that have remained with me to this day for a school that transformed
my life". Recalling Mr Woodman, he adds, 'We did have some fun at
Mr Woodman's expense but he always took it in good grace. Mr Woodman
knew every one of us on the first day and he never lost that personal
touch, as we progressed from the front of the assembly hall in first-year
to the rear of the hall in Upper-Sixth. This journey turned us into
adults and inculcated us with a broad and liberal education that
has served us well to date.

'It was a privilege to listen to his talks in assembly and during
religious education classes. He challenged us intellectually and
spiritually, both by his actions and in his professional dealings
with us in school. He led us from childhood to adulthood during
the most formative years of our lives."

He added, 'The school was never solely about results but spiritual,
personal and social growth to enable us to serve within the community,
both as leaders and followers. Mr Woodman was inspirational and
I still detect the echoes of his teachings in my peers' conversations,
as we fondly remember him. 'Today the world of education is catching
up to the point he had already reached during the 1960s. Pastoral
care has to be taught today but for him it was a life-well-lived,
as he walked in the shoes of the fisherman from Galilee"

Mr Tate has also worked extensively within the youth and voluntary
sector and is well know for his work in cross-community reconciliation.
He has received a number of awards for this work and is chairman
of Aughnacloy and Truagh European Studies Schools' Project (Cross-Community
and Cross Border) Peace 2 EU Programme.

During his years in Belvoir Park Primary School, he has also been
involved in speech and language therapy. He is a member of the Northern
Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People Review on Speech
and Language Therapy Services for Children and Young People, a member
of the DHSS Regional Speech and Language Therapy Task Force, and
a member of the Department of Education's Community Relations Policy
Review Group

He also finds time to fulfil other roles, as a fellow of the Royal
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce,
a member of the Chartered Management Institute, an assessor for
the School Inspection Branch, and a co-ordinator of the Investor
In People Award.

Mr Tate and his wife Margaret live in Waringstown. They have four
children, Craig, Ryan, Ross and Anna.

Billy Tate Career Profile 1977 - 2008
1977 ' 1984 Holywood High School
Head of Careers & Teacher of History
1984 ' 1990 Armagh Secondary School
Head of Special Educational Need's Department